The Synchronizer

If you haven’t heard the news yet, SQL Server 2005 SP2 is out! Now if you are like me, thinking about data synchronization for the most part of your day, then you should be really excited about SP2. Let me tell you why. Recall that in all sync services...

You probably have heard about SyncToy already and might have tried it before. Well, if not, you should. Let me tell you why this tool is among the top fifty downloads from Microsoft: it is simple, elegant, and very very useful. It allows you to easily...

In a bit old post I wrote about min_active_rowversion() as the best way to get the new anchor showing you that @@DBTS has its flaws and thus should be avoided. Min_active_rowversion() was introduced in SP2 for SQL Server 2005. If you have code that still...

One of the common questions I get from developers once they get their hands on the new sync framework for ADO.NET is: How is it different from SQL Merge Replication? When should I use merge as oppose to sync services? Can sync services do filtering, ddl...

One of the important topics in data synchronization is managing metadata used to track changes on the store. Just a quick reminder of the different kinds of metadata used in the demos so far: Adding inline columns to each table we plan to synchronize...

I remember the very beginnings when Sync Services came along and I started blogging that people asked to have the runtime works on mobile devices. That is a reasonable and expected request. After all, mobile devices are the true occasionally connected...

I admit that writing your own change tracking logic for each table you want to synchronize is a little bit annoying and suboptimal experience at best. Not just that, adding triggers affects the performance of DML operation negatively. You also need to...

I am sure you already know that SP1 Beta for Visual Studio 2008 is available to download . There are plenty of enhancements that I am sure the VS folks are covering all over the net with different blogs. As a sync guy, I am on the lookout for everything...

It is about time for our offline application to deal with sync conflicts. Conflicts are fact of life in lazy synchronization environments. It is likely that your application users don’t want to deal with conflicts. Therefore you are encouraged to architect...

I originally authored the offline application line of samples to show off the different features of Sync Services. My main goal back then was to provide you with a quick start guide such that you can get into sync quickly. The series of demos has grown...

I had few conversations on the sync services forum about that ability to synchronize a table with auto-increment column, also known as identity column, as the primary key or unique id for the row. It is rather common to see this pattern of primary key...

The N-Tier demo has finally arrived. This demo shows you how to take the server side code, basically the ServerSyncProvider along with all SyncAdapters that we build in the last demo, and expose it as a web service. On the client side, you generate a...

The same bits released with Orcas Beta 1.0 are now available as a standalone package. The documentation update is out too, although few days ago (our technical writers rocks!) To download the runtime click here . To download the documentation client...

This is the first demo application to demonstrate building offline application using Synchronization Services for ADO.NET framework. I have more demo ideas in mind and I will post more demos in the following weeks. Feel free to make any suggestions ....

We hear every day that more and more people are coming online with high speed internet connections, WiFi hotspots are increasingly popular and getting faster, unlimited mobile data plan are cheaper than ever and the reception is better than ever. Everyone...

Roger Jennings in his most recent blog post asked an interesting question on how sync services deal with one-to-many relationship between tables undergoing synchronization? Roger is the most active blogger I know of and he is watching sync services closely...

Rob Tiffany, the mobile accelerator guy , just announced the new release of Windows Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator 2008 . It a collection of windows mobile centric samples that showcase different new technologies and help developers greatly...

As you know we’ve released the V1.0 of Sync Services for ADO.NET as a standalone package. It is also bundled with Visual Studio 2008 with additional Sync Designer experience. Sync Services is one component in a comprehensive sync platform offering from...

One of the design goals of Sync Services framework is to enable heterogeneous database in the backend. That explains the open design of the DbServerSyncProvider class. If you haven’t noticed already all the commands supplied to the provider and SyncAdapters...

Today in DevConnections (Vegas) and TechEd (Europe) we are unveiling the complete sync framework. We have been working on this framework for a long time now and today is the day to tell everyone about what we have built. Well, let me tell you that you...

The term 'peer' or more commonly 'peer to peer' leads people to think about sharing and collaboration scenarios. That's good. One of the most common peer to peer applications that quickly jumps to mind is file sharing which became rather popular in the...

Let me just say that synchronization services eventing model is so rich. It is designed to enable you to build many of the features that business applications demand. Some of those features that come to mind are: Monitoring and progress reporting...

Offline clients are not born equal; one client would like to sync a lot of server data while another client might just wish for its small share of rows that pertains to the task at hand. Sync services framework recognizes the need for data partitioning...

A lot of excitement about the announcement of Live Mesh this week. It is interesting to see this collection of services put together tying user content, devices, and social circle together in a web enabled experience. My favorite part is the news pane...

Occasionally, I receive questions about using SQL Change Tracking with PeerSyncProvider. People who examine SQL Change Tracking in preview version of SQL Server 2008 have become fans rather quickly and see the value of using it. Using change tracking...